Chamberlain, Gordon are Stars of the Year
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BY CURT McKEEVER / Lincoln Journal Star
Of all the exotic locales available to them to go and unwind after a whirlwind first season of major-league baseball, and Alex Gordon and Joba Chamberlain still go to the same old place.
Home.
To be with their families in Lincoln.
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April 2: Makes major-league debut against the Boston Red Sox. He went 0-for-3, but reached base after being hit by a pitch.
April 10: After a slow start, Gordon hits his first big-league homer and drives in his first two runs in a Royals’ win against the Blue Jays.
June 7: Nearly hits for the cycle against Cleveland. Gordon goes 4-for-4 with a pair of singles, a double and a triple.
June 10: Goes 1-for-2 against the Phillies, which began a seven-game hit streak, his longest of the season.
June 26: Hits a bomb to right field, a three-run shot. Drives in four runs against the Angels.
June 30: Goes 0-for-3 against the White Sox, but bats .327 for June.
Sept. 7: Gets a hit off former Husker teammate Joba Chamberlain in the bottom of the eighth inning.
JOBA CHAMBERLAIN
May 5: Throws four innings in pro debut in Tampa with the Yankees’ single-A club.
July 8: Plays in the Futures All-Star Game in San Francisco, pitching in one inning of relief. He allows one run.
July 11: Gets call up to Double-A Trenton after going 4-0 with 51 strikeouts in Tampa.
July 24: Gets call up to Triple-A Scranton.
Aug. 7: Makes big-league debut in the eighth inning against the Toronto Blue Jays. He strikes out two and allows no runs.
Aug. 10: In the eighth inning, strikes out the side against Cleveland.
Sept. 7: Pitches to former Husker teammate Alex Gordon and gives up a single.
Sept. 16: In Boston, gives up his first earned run. It breaks a streak of 172/3 innings without giving up an earned run.
Oct. 5: Makes playoff debut against Cleveland, striking out two and giving up a run a Yankees loss.
This is what Mike Anderson means when he says how lucky he feels to have been their coach at Nebraska.
“What I’ve seen out of those kids (this year) is tremendous maturity,” said Anderson, who these days talks very little baseball when he sees Gordon and Chamberlain. “They’re going to have their ups and downs, but on a whole, when I watch TV and watch interviews, and when I talk to them, there’s no doubt in my mind (their makeup) comes from strong family.
“I personally believe that being a kid from Lincoln, Nebraska, they get ‘it.’ They just have a good foundation. They’re going to come back to their family.”
In recognition of the positive impact they’ve had on athletics in Nebraska, the 23-year-old Gordon and 22-year-old Chamberlain are honored as the Journal Star 2007 Stars of the Year.
The paths they took to the big leagues were as contrasting as their Kansas City, Mo., and New York City backdrops.
Gordon, the 2006 minor league player of the year, won the Royals’ third-base job in spring training by leading the team in hitting.
Chamberlain, in his first season of pro ball, rose through three minor-league levels with the Yankees, switched from starter to reliever and, after getting called up on Aug.7, became a fan favorite while fueling a team of stars to a late run into the playoffs.
Strangely enough, their seasons were loosely entwined at the end against the Cleveland Indians.
In the ninth inning of the Royals’ final game, Gordon suffered a broken nasal cavity when a ground ball hit by Cleveland’s Kelly Shoppach took a wild hop and struck his nose.
This came after he’d overcome a rough first two months to finish hitting .247, with a team-high 36 doubles. He also was second on the team with 15 home runs and tied for second with 60 RBIs.
Later, Gordon joked how the injury, which required surgery, got him out of having his engagement photo taken the day after the season finale.
Chamberlain also was left chuckling — eventually — over some bad luck he and the Yankees had during his next-to-last outing of the season, in Game 2 of the American League Divisional Series at Cleveland.
Having compiled a 0.38 earned-run average while allowing a lone run in 19 regular-season appearances, Chamberlain got the Yankees out of a seventh-inning jam and took the mound for the eighth with New York holding a 1-0 lead. Just then, a swarm of midges invaded the field and seemed to set their sights on Chamberlain.
Repeated sprays of insecticide were no deterrent, and Chamberlain ended up throwing two wild pitches, which allowed Cleveland to tie a game they later won 2-1 in extra innings.
Last Thursday — when he made a one-day trip from Lincoln to New York to spend time with patients at the Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center’s department of pediatrics — the scene in Cleveland was the farthest thing from Chamberlain’s mind.
While signing baseballs and posing for pictures in his Yankee blue Santa hat, Chamberlain told MLB.com’s Anthony DiComo: “The opportunities that I had when I was younger were few and far between. I’m blessed to be put in this situation, and I wouldn’t be here if it weren’t for a lot of people. If I can help one or two people, that makes it all worth it.”
No doubt, 2008 will bring , more surprises on the field for Chamberlain, slated to begin spring training as a starting pitcher, and Gordon, one of Royals’ young untouchables who will switch from wearing No. 7 to his trademark No. 4.
But really, it’s not the inherent quirkiness of baseball that leads them first to the comforts of their families when they’re away from the game.
They’d come home anyway.
Harlan Chamberlain says the relationship his only son has with his only daughter, 26-year-old Tasha, is “as close as any brother and sister can be.”
He remembers how they, while growing up in a single-parent household, reserved Sunday nights for themselves and how their listening to the radio together invariably would lead to call-ins dedicating songs to each other.
This Christmas, they gave their dad a special gift of showing up together for some more immediate-family-only time. Harlan guessed it was the first such Christmas gathering in 10 years.
“It was just heartwarming to me that they would come together — just the two of them,” he said. “It was like the old days, just the three of us.”
Just like then, baseball didn’t dominate the conversation.
Just like it doesn’t now between Gordon and his 26-year-old brother Eric. Each served as best man in the other’s wedding.
Alex’s was earlier this month and a couple days before it, Eric wanted it made clear he was feeling no pressure to deliver the newlyweds a rousing toast at their reception.
“It was the worst speech that anybody’s ever heard in their life,” he said of Alex’s attempt at Eric’s wedding. “I don’t have much to live up to.”
It seems that Eric still enjoys keeping his brother in line, like he did when he didn’t want Alex getting too big of a head after he’d been placed on the same select baseball team.
But nowadays, his intentions are a little different.
“We never really talked sports together,” Eric said of when the two were growing up. And now, “not that I don’t care, but it’s not a big deal unless he wants to talk to me, which he did last season (when he was playing at Wichita, Kan.). At the beginning of the year, he was struggling big-time and he called and asked what he was doing. I just told him: ‘Relax, it’s always been there.’
“It makes me feel good that he still thinks he can call me and ask my advice about stuff. I was very proud to help him. He can talk to me a little looser. He can say stuff to me that he can’t to my dad or my mom.”
It’s what close siblings do.
“He’s still the same old brother to me, and always will be,” Eric said. “When I went (to Kansas City) on Opening Day, I actually got some tears in my eyes when I saw him out there. But after the game, it’s the same old brother thing.”
A brother. A sister. Family.
Home.
With Alex Gordon and Joba Chamberlain, the exotic locations can wait.
“I’ve seen too many guys run in different directions, and … they’re doing it the right way,” Anderson said of Gordon and Chamberlain. “Everybody in the world is slapping them on the back telling them how good a job they’re doing. I think they’re Lincoln kids who are very well grounded. They’ve got faith and they’ve got family, and that’s all you need.”
Reach Curt McKeever at 473-7441 or cmckeever@journalstar.com.
